


let us say the devil is played by two men

by Handful_of_Silence



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Protective Foggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3959428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Handful_of_Silence/pseuds/Handful_of_Silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There are two men in Hell’s Kitchen with the devil in them, and Foggy loves them both.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	let us say the devil is played by two men

Foggy falls in love for the first time one winter, coughing sporadically with the tail-end of a cold and complaining about the heating. The frost has crackled like rust over the window, and it’s too freezing to  do anything at all productive. Pillows against their backs to prop them up against the headboard of his bed, he is narrating a film to Matt, using the experience of umpteen younger siblings and cousins to stack up a repertoire of increasingly singular voices which he uses to elaborate the frankly quite predictable plot. He’s made up a whole wacky extra story going on behind the scenes, and Matt is creased over, arms crossed over his chest,  bubbling with laughter and this just urges him on to weave further and further outrages.

From that day, he remembers two things: the first, that Matt totally snorted lemonade out his nose even though he vehemently denied it. The second, that he realised that he wanted to be making Matt laugh like that for the rest of his life.

Foggy falls in love again when he awakes to a night not quite tipped over into day to the sound of someone knocking over his potted plant from the window ledge. The first aid kit is within easy reach, crammed in the same drawer as his poorly-folded shirts and gone-grey-in-the-wash boxers, and he pads into the living room to find Daredevil panting on the couch, trying to unclasp his mask and favouring one side of his body gingerly. The sofa dips with a muffled grunt when Foggy sits down next to him, and Daredevil says _sorry about this_  in his raspy chain-smoker voice. _Don’t be an idiot_ , Foggy replies, and he carefully patches up this force of nature sat meekly on his couch, knowing that one day his hands will not be steady enough.

It is when the tap-water is running red as Foggy cleans the blood out from under his nails, that he realises he will always do this. That he wants to be the person fussing over every new evidence of impact on skin because it means this hollow-eyed man has come back, has  _come home_ to him, and that has to mean something if nothing else.

There are two men in Hell’s Kitchen with the devil in them. Foggy has enough love in his heart for both.

**

They are not the same, these devils.

Matt reels against him when they’ve hit  the bars, hands swung around shoulders, bumping into him, leaning against him completely like he has complete faith Foggy can take his weight. They kiss erratically, spontaneously, pressing lips against noses, ears, the side of mouths, hands sweaty in hands and their smiles stupid-drunk. They will shush each other loudly, the aftermath of loud music still jangling in their eyes,  and stumble making their way up the flights of stairs to Foggy’s apartment. Once they’re inside, Matt will breathe hot against his throat, and chuckle, and crowd up against Foggy as though he’s the safest place he knows. They’ll maybe try to have sex, but Matt will end up accidentally rolling off the bed, or Foggy will move too fast and clunk their foreheads together, and then they’ll both be giggling breathless and dazed with the lateness of the hour. They’ll end up just dropping boneless into the bed, buried under the covers, limbs coiled around limbs and their bodies making odd angles. Matt will snuffle in his sleep and drool open-mouthed, and his hands will clasp their bodies even closer sometime in the night, making them both far too hot. Foggy will press sleepy kisses into his hair and know that this must be what love feels like.

Daredevil will only ever visit at night, and only when he can’t bear to be alone. His touches are careful, considered, his knuckles scratched and bloody. He rests his whole body against Foggy’s like he can’t find the strength to take the weight anymore. He sits dazed or still, perched on the edge of the couch, which means that Foggy has to be the one to draw him out, bring him back, peeling the suit off, washing off the grime and grit under the shower-head, sickly bruises illuminated under the unforgiving lighting. Matt wants to cling to him, revel in him like the fondest of memories, wants to graze his hands over skin he knows. Daredevil wants to keep Foggy alive, and so his touches are a little shorter, a little less indulgent. He is too busy thinking of the things he isn’t doing, the people he is failing, and so Foggy has to work at unravelling him, winding him down to bring him back to the now. He keeps up a litany of whispered promises – _I’m here, I’m safe, you’re safe, we’re ok_ – and is rewarded with a tentative return.

Matt kisses him like he doesn’t care who knows. Daredevil touches him like he’s terrified someone will find out.

Daredevil will come to Foggy’s bed only if Foggy leads him, slipping their hands together with a first-date self-awareness. Laying him down gently, injecting each kiss with a reassurance. His mask will be off, but he’s still lost to the city, and Foggy has to ever so gently lead him back into the light. There is a difference in the way they touch him, these two men. Matt will lean over his shoulder to swipe at the last of Foggy’s bagel, drape himself over him and dig elbows into his ribs; he will draw spirals with his finger amidst the sparse hair on Foggy’s chest and  knock their ankles together under the table. There is a comfortable familiarity in this that is a far cry from the near-reverence the man in the mask shows him. Foggy is not a sanctuary to Matt, he is a home. Foggy is Matt’s North, whereas Daredevil is just trying to keep the compass in his hand steady.

Daredevil will say little as he huffs against Foggy’s shoulder, striving to be closer, to push deeper, and he will handle Foggy like he’s not sure if this won’t break under his skin. He will still leave bruises on Foggy’s hips, scratches down his side. He will not kiss, just touch  their lips insistently together with his eyes screwed shut. He will stutter under Foggy’s hands, slowly shatter, gasp ragged and unsteady like he’s burning. He will repeat Foggy’s name quietly, over and over.

Matt says his name like an amen, like a blessing. Daredevil says it like a confession.

Daredevil will fall asleep with his head on Foggy’s chest, and Foggy will lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling in the dark. His fingers tracing over the imprint of old scars. His heartbeat will pick up every time he hears sirens.

This could be a love story, and maybe it is, but there are enough scratches on his skin and blood-stains on his sofa to make him remember how fragile this all is.

**

There are two men in Hell’s kitchen with the devil in them.

One is trying to put the past behind him. He makes the best coffee in Manhattan because he’ll only buy a certain type of exotic bean, and Foggy fondly calls him a snob. Matt puts a suit on over his bruises and fiddles with the hemline of his sleeves; he  somehow cheats at scrabble and hums when he’s content, but doesn’t sing. He mouths prayers to himself before he sleeps, and Foggy knows that he and Karen feature in them prominently. The devil lurks in the bite behind his courtroom statements, his slit-sharp smile and cut-glass edges, the remembrance of scars on his knuckles. Matt is something known, a mystery of faith he knows the words to, the Hail Mary’s and the Our Father’s. He doesn’t look anything like the devil Foggy used to imagine. He sometimes wears Foggy’s shirt to sleep in, and tuts at him when Foggy drinks straight out of the juice carton, and will only order noodles from the Chinese but will steal at least half of what Foggy’s having over the course of the meal. He tells Foggy he loves him irregularly but sincerely.

The other is trying to shape the present with old lessons. He has embraced his histories, the muscle memory of his body, and he strikes out with a kind of motion that encompasses both his wrath and his grace. He will gulp down a glass of water straight out of Foggy’s tap, and smear blood from a split lip when he tries to wipe his mouth, sitting with his hands still shaking from adrenaline. He will say he is not hungry, but Foggy will insist, and will chew carefully on a sandwich, or some toast, or a bar of chocolate while Foggy applies bandages, his hands lingering over each and every wound. He prays aloud when he thinks Foggy can’t hear him from another room.  They are more like bargains than prayers. For Foggy, Daredevil is like a sin committed immediately before confession, asking for forgiveness and only half sorry. He will look exactly like the devil he always imagined, even with his mask off. He will not tell Foggy he loves him, but will push into him a little too desperately, mumble _stay with me_ and _I’m sorry_ and _thank you_ against the raised marks he’s just scraped with his teeth, and all these words balance out the same in the end.

The devil takes the form of two men that are at once  the same man. Both of them kiss Foggy like they’re trying to learn something about themselves, and although both have dark hair and even darker eyes and the ghost of old bruises mottled up their ribs, only one of them will grin at him with his teeth showing. They both smell like the city, and both are taking the turn in the road up ahead at the wrong angle but Foggy’s still sitting in the passenger seat regardless.  They won’t always tell him they love him, but they love him.

Foggy loves them back with a feeling he doesn’t have a name for, loves them both with an intensity that should frighten him. He says he loves them often, casually, intentionally, whispered against skin or over early morning coffee. Foggy thinks a lot of how lucky he is. He prays in the night too, not in as many words and with sentiments more like promises. He folds his arms around each man like he could make a shield around them. Foggy wants to protect the things he loves.

Both men snuffle in their sleep. Neither seem much like devils with their eyes closed.

**Author's Note:**

> Kinkmeme prompt: Matt/Foggy, Daredevil/Foggy. Matt and the Daredevil are two different people (or maybe Matt has an alternate personality): both of them love Foggy. Foggy loves them both.
> 
>   ~~ok, so I didn't exactly write what the OP had in mind...~~
> 
> Title from Richard Siken's _You Are Jeff_.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] let us say the devil is played by two men](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4525821) by [erica_schall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erica_schall/pseuds/erica_schall)




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